06-18-2014, 12:00 PM
Newest Edit
What I Know About Alzheimer’s
i. After Death
I’ve always wondered
if father dreamed, did he remember
his own name
He’s buried now with a whirligig
beside his plot, a headstone etched
with his name and dates so others
will remember him, even if he couldn’t
His last years were beach sand,
a gift to be blown away; Alzheimer’s
was how his distance widened,
how all his names moved
farther and farther away
Sometimes, when I visited, I wondered
whether he was ashamed he could dream
at all.
ii. Before Death
His hands hold the new electric razor;
they can no longer be trusted
to the straight edge. He reminds me oddly
of an older model of a father: boned,
collapsible, something to be forgotten
in a deep closet. Pocked skin, his veneer
of fatigue; arms as if from a child’s drawing.
He asks me to how to use it and puts it to his face,
as if wanting to scrape thin ice on a winter windshield.
No, here, Dad. Let me show you.
He watches in the mirror as I guide his finger
to the on/off switch, says with a cold-fact delivery,
I used to do this kind of stuff for you.
His dark eyes are hungry to remember; I feel my finger
on his finger, feel the calluses, his skin flaking into dust.
Yes, you did. Many times.
iii. Death Night
Father never took slow showers,
nor did I ever ask him about his dreams
over coffee or between bites of corn flakes
or raison toast with Skippy peanut butter.
He never went religious, not even after Lisa;
I often fell asleep with his Twin Cities voice
on the radio, statically, like bags of salt,
selling London Luggage leather hand bags
or used cars from towns named Cadott
or Chippewa Falls, cities that have supplied
the world with cozy children. There is no way
back from there; even when I used to wake
with him on the bed’s edge, I considered him
a genius in our city by the river near the trees.
What I Know About Alzheimer’s
i. After Death
I’ve always wondered
if father dreamed, did he remember
his own name
He’s buried now with a whirligig
beside his plot, a headstone etched
with his name and dates so others
will remember him, even if he couldn’t
His last years were beach sand,
a gift to be blown away; Alzheimer’s
was how his distance widened,
how all his names moved
farther and farther away
Sometimes, when I visited, I wondered
whether he was ashamed he could dream
at all.
ii. Before Death
His hands hold the new electric razor;
they can no longer be trusted
to the straight edge. He reminds me oddly
of an older model of a father: boned,
collapsible, something to be forgotten
in a deep closet. Pocked skin, his veneer
of fatigue; arms as if from a child’s drawing.
He asks me to how to use it and puts it to his face,
as if wanting to scrape thin ice on a winter windshield.
No, here, Dad. Let me show you.
He watches in the mirror as I guide his finger
to the on/off switch, says with a cold-fact delivery,
I used to do this kind of stuff for you.
His dark eyes are hungry to remember; I feel my finger
on his finger, feel the calluses, his skin flaking into dust.
Yes, you did. Many times.
iii. Death Night
Father never took slow showers,
nor did I ever ask him about his dreams
over coffee or between bites of corn flakes
or raison toast with Skippy peanut butter.
He never went religious, not even after Lisa;
I often fell asleep with his Twin Cities voice
on the radio, statically, like bags of salt,
selling London Luggage leather hand bags
or used cars from towns named Cadott
or Chippewa Falls, cities that have supplied
the world with cozy children. There is no way
back from there; even when I used to wake
with him on the bed’s edge, I considered him
a genius in our city by the river near the trees.